N.M. fire enters canyon near lab

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - Firefighters were confident Thursday they had stopped the advance of a wildfire that headed toward the Los Alamos nuclear lab and the nearby town that now sits empty for the second time in 11 years, even as they battled the blaze that crept into a canyon that descends into the town and parts of the lab.

Of 1,000 firefighters on the scene, 200 were battling the blaze in Los Alamos Canyon, which runs past the old Manhattan Project site in town and a 1940s era dump site where workers are near the end of a clean-up project of low-level radioactive waste.

The World War II Manhattan Project developed the first atomic bomb, and workers from the era dumped hazardous and radioactive waste in trenches along 6 acres atop the mesa where the town sits.

"The threat is pretty limited," said Kevin Smith, site manager for Los Alamos for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the lab. "Most of the materials have been dug up."

Los Alamos Canyon runs through town and a portion of the northern end of the lab, where a weapons research nuclear reactor was located until it was demolished in 2003.

The fire burned upslope at least 3 miles from the sites and didn't pose an immediate threat.

Los Alamos County Fire Chief Doug Tucker said the area in the canyon that was burning had been previously been thinned, providing a safe area for firefighters to attack it.